Reading the work of 6 contemporary satiric novelists through contemporary theory, this book explores the possibility of reading and criticism after postmodernism.

What is the significance of writing in the wake of postmodernism? The previous decade has seen a growing interest in criticism of postmodern ethics and aesthetics from theorists and writers. This book begins to examine what art form or critical methodology might take its place. Exploring the work of six contemporary novelists - Bret Easton Ellis, J.G. Ballard, Will Self, Michel Houellebecq, Tama Janowitz and Chuck Palahniuk - Ethics and Desire in the Wake of Postmodernism delivers a series of interventions into six key areas of contemporary debate: fear, nihilism, revolution, ethics, enjoyment and feminism. The book goes on to develop an innovative critical methodology which reinvigorates the ability of art and literature to engage in ideological critique. Rather than valorising separatism, plurality or indeterminacy, this approach delivers a critical framework which enacts a radical de-centering of the fundamental coordinates of contemporary society.